I literally have no words.

Via Rebecca Schoenkopf at Wonkette:

Oh, man, an airplane with a crying baby, right? Teh. Worst. It is like they are in pain or something and have no way to communicate that pain except screaming! We, being mamas ourselves, are always really really really nice to people with screaming babies on airplanes. We make sympathy faces at them so they know we understand and do not hate them and will not do anything like reach over, slap their baby, and snarl “shut that nigger baby up.” Wait, WHAT? We know! We did not even warn you that “shut that nigger baby up” was coming, because we are not about to put that in a headline, and “n-word baby” is just silly. The Idaho man, by the way, the one who slapped a black baby and snarled “shut that nigger baby up,” he, just so you know, is not a racist.

So case closed, right? In fact, Mr. Hundley is a racist! Many people came to the mama’s aid, including a dude from several rows up who saw the whole thing and swore it out to the Fibbies. Well NOT SO FAST THERE BUDDY. Because The Smoking Gun’s commenters have Zaprudered this fucker and pointed out none of it could have happened at all! In fact, you could say they found the smoking gun!

Because people on the plane, including the mom, are so going to make a story like this up out of whole cloth, right?

It’s weird seeing this story blow up given that the mother and child are my cousins. And it’s revolting to see some of the commentary surrounding the story. I cannot understand the bullshit comments about “where’s the dad when this is going on” as anything but racism. Clearly because the baby is black the father must be also be black and therefore open to immediate suspicion about his involvement or lack thereof in his son’s life. And somehow that matters for whether random assholes are entitled to call his son a nigger and assault him. I’ve never thought twice about women flying alone with their babies, but apparently when mother and son don’t have the same color of skin there’s a rule that the father has to be at their sides at all times. News to me.

“Shut that baby up” would have still been rude. He had to go for extra credit by using the n-word. And of efgoldman’s trollish question, of course it’s never “OK” to strike a stranger’s child. Even striking your own is questionable, though of course the degree, frequency, and circumstances all have to be taken into account (said as one who once administered a few firm pats to a 2-year-old niece’s behind for running into the street immediately after being set down following a lengthy conversation about how running into the street wasn’t acceptable, why it wasn’t acceptable, and the potential consequences of running into the street).

That would have been one dead cracker if that had been my child. Hell, the kid wouldn’t have had to have been mine if I saw what he did and heard his epithet. It would have took the police, national guard and the military to get me off his ass.

“We understand that authorities are investigating the recent behavior of one of our business unit executives while on personal travel. The allegations are disturbing and are contradictory to our values.”

“We are taking this matter seriously. In accordance with our company’s personal conduct policy, we have suspended the employee pending investigation.”

Larry G. writes:
I hope the cardinals return to the tradition of selecting an Italian as pope. Otherwise this time we may be saddled with a Hispanic, an African, or—God forbid—an American.
LA replies:
It won’t stop now with a black, or—God help us—with an American. Every time a new pope is elected, he will have to be from a different race / country/ continent / culture, until all the relevant sub-divisions of mankind have been proportionally represented.

I’m not going to link it. You can go find it if you need to feel dirty. You will need a bath after.

I’m so feckin’ angry I don’t even want to leave my real comment, because it may make me look like a violent $$hole if I said what I would want done to this man for slapping another person’s child, and then using a racial epithet.

I had a moment of, “Wait, why is this guy being suspended from his job for something he did on his personal time?” And then I went, “Oh, yeah, pending criminal charges for assault and battery on a minor.”

I also suspect that if this is a guy who gets drunk and physically assaults toddlers on airplanes, he may not be the most stable employee in the workplace, either.

@Nunya: It makes it even harder to read that this mum and baby are related to you! And some of the comments on Smoking Gun are just incredibly awful. I was on a plane flying from UK to NY last year, where a baby started crying at take-off and never stopped, for 8 hours – obviously an ear problem. Luckily there were three UK nurses sitting in the aisle behind me, on their way to a long Xmas weekend in NYC, and they made it their business to take turns walking that baby up and down the aisles for 8 hours – kind of sharing out the noise, but helped that mum big-time, and meant everyone sitting near her didn’t have to endure all the noise, all the time. That’s what compassion is – Mr Hundley is devoid of that kind of humanity, and is, thus, an asshole; he should be charged not with common assault, but child abuse.

Also too, this story today reminds me of one that was posted by the Field Negro Saturday morning, but from another angle:

Yup, secretaries, subordinates, restaurant/bar waiters staff, cab drivers, whoever mows his lawn, cleans his house, store clerks, pets if he has any and they could talk, his family if he has one and they dared to talk, pretty much anyone he comes into contact with that doesn’t have more seniority or power than he does.

@Nunya: From my experience as a white adoptive mom to a child of color, the rule you’re searching for is not exactly ‘dads must be present’. It’s ‘I’m not scared of some little white girl that has a brown baby because I’m superior to her’. Your cousin, by adopting that boy, waived her membership in the white race according to the aggressive, obnoxious bigots among us. I have had similar (in kind but not degree, or I’d be posting this from federal prison) moments of WTF with my fellow white people.

I’d bet my house that had the mama in question been black, this racist would have been afraid to slap her child. Because he’d have used the same beliefs that told him no one on the plane was going to hold him accountable, or question his word about what occurred, to determine that Shannika was going to cut him up if he wronged her.

Those people are dangerous because they’re violent, you know. Senselessly and inhumanely violent.

I agree. I read the comments over at the smoking gun after the link at Wonkette and I was just blown away by how crazy they were–especially the weird diatribes focusedon whether she was travelling alone or not. Jeebus, women travel with babies alone all the time. Its not possible to deduce where/when/who the father is from this fact.

The Idaho/white supremacist thing leaped out at me, as well. I guess I’m profiling but occam’s razor.

@greenergood:
From the story you linked (I saw it this morning, then couldn’t find it again):

A nurse is suing a hospital, claiming it agreed to man’s request that no African-Americans care for his baby.
The lawsuit accuses managers at Hurley Medical Center in Flint of reassigning Tonya Battle, who has worked at the facility for 25 years, based on the color of her skin.
The man approached Battle, while she was caring for his child in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, asking to speak to her supervisor, according to the complaint filed in January by Battle’s attorney.

The man, who is not named in the filing, allegedly showed her a tattoo that may have been “a swastika of some kind” and told her that he didn’t want African-Americans involved in his baby’s care.
The request, according to the lawsuit, made its way through management ranks, and was granted. Battle’s manager called her at home to tell her she would be reassigned — and why, the suit says.

@Mnemosyne: Ahh, all he has to do is offer a tearful apology to anyone that was offended and announce that he found Jesus through this horrible experience. Call me cynical. But if he has some sort of DOD security clearance, that might make a difference to his company.

@efgoldman: I just find it hard to imagine that if your baby’s in hospital (and it looks like this baby was in hospital for longer than a week at least) that you’d say ‘No I don’t want my child to have treatment from a qualified nurse because of the colour of his/her skin.’ What TF does skin colour have to do with health care?? If the father had a heart attack and the only medics who could treat him were not white, he can choose his fate (and I know what fate I’d choose for him), but to endanger his child due to his racism – that’s just incredible.

If the father had a heart attack and the only medics who could treat him were not white, he can choose his fate (and I know what fate I’d choose for him), but to endanger his child due to his racism – that’s just incredible.

Yes it is. Its also classic. All kinds of stories like that came out of the segregated South.

When the American Red Cross announced a nationwide blood drive to build up that blood supply needed for the military, African Americans lined up with other patriotic Americans to donate blood – but they were turned away.

I think he’ll be allowed to quietly “retire”. Airplane parts-one of the biggest customers are governments who run their own airlines and Federal contracts. By definition, the company wants to make sure that clients in the Third World and perhaps Arab world too, aren’t taken aback by this and begin to fear that the company harbors people who are hostile to them in some way.

He’s probably been an internal embarrassment as well, but until today they maybe never really heard of any charges of any kind against him.

Read the comments at the original thread/article about the nurse. The number of people who come on to support the father and accuse all black people of being incompetent, greedy, affirmative action hires is just jaw dropping. Also the number of reverse sexists concern trolling the “well known” fact that women can refuse to have a male nurse or doctor in attendance–which, as far as I know, is actually a courtesy accorded to both male and female patients.

@efgoldman: Now this was more than 25 years ago, but one of the fraternities at my university asked the school to cater a dinner for some ritual* involving their alumni. The catering staff consisted of students doing work-study jobs. One of the options on the contract form was for special requests; they used it to ask that African-American and Jewish students be excluded from crew for their event. The university basically said “Fuck you.” My fraternity was next door to theirs and we were about 25% Jewish and 10% AA. It made for, shall we say, strained relations.

@SiubhanDuinne:
I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised. A few years ago we were visiting family in Michigan and took our niece to the Detroit Zoo. We drove through a little town called Howell. Our niece’s mom told us later that Howell had been a Klan center. I had forgotten about that when I read this post.

White people—sorry, I should say certain white people—have some kind of a problem with babies. When my daughter was a baby most people in our neighborhood treated her with kindness and with the tacit understanding that a baby is, fundamentally, from a simple human perspective, a blessing.

The ONLY people who ever treated our baby with contempt were white people. The only people who ever acted like having a baby was a strike against us were white people. The only people who acted like a baby crying was some kind of a crime were white people. Without exception. Other parents I’ve talked to have noticed the same thing.

@aimai: It’s amazing to me how racist Whites are except for allowing Blacks to fight in their armies. Sending them to die in useless oversea wars is fine, but treating them with respect here in the US is always a big problem. Amazing. That’s why I will always love Muhammad Ali for his stance on the Vietnam War, even though I hate boxing.

@Nunya: I was just sickened at those comments at the Smoking Gun. I am so sorry your relatives have to deal with such awful racism especially having already dealt with the screwed up situation on the plane. What is wrong with people?

@A Humble Lurker: You were right. I am from Texas. I live in Texas. So looks like you didn’t actually learn anything new today. IOW, another day ending in Y. You’re just as fucking stupid when you go to bed tonight as you were fucking stupid when you unfortunately woke up this morning.

@Corner Stone: “You’re just as fucking stupid when you go to bed tonight as you were fucking stupid when you unfortunately woke up this morning. “

I know that you’re only being smug because every night you go to bed an asshole and unfortunately you are an even bigger asshole when you wake up. I think you’ve reached the point that you have to see a proctologist if you are in need of any kind of medical care.

It’s interesting when the dead thread ankle biters show up and try to bite off a commenter rather than actually put something out there that drives discussion.
Interesting in a way that isn’t really useful, but rather instructive for the little ones.
Don’t be like those dead threaders.

@Odie Hugh Manatee: CS looks to be a bitter disability type. While Texas rails against ’em, we unfortunately have far too many who either firebag or run off to the border to shoot people. It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.

If he has a disability then I hope he has a good proctologist to deal with it. The CS existence here is all about shitting in ABL threads and leg humping the AL threads. That and proving that when it comes to the biggest things out there, Texas is the home of all of them.

@Corner Stone:
I see, you weren’t the Idaho man, you just WISH you were him. And you’re sad and pathetic enough to take that frustration out on us. So tragic. Or it would be if anything of value was wasted.

This is gross as hell, to be sure. But for God’s sake, keep your infants off of airplanes until they’re old enough to perform the Frenzel Maneuver, otherwise you’re causing them pain for no other reason than your own convenience.

Any parents who take an infant on an airplane should be arrested for child abuse.

@Chet:
This is a curious tangent. As far as I know, it’s not considered abusive to take a baby or toddler travelling by plane. Plenty of parents do it; just look around the departure lounge the next time you go flying. Can you point to any authority on parenting that advises against it?

@Hypatia’s Momma: Hayden Lake WAS an epicenter for the Aryan Brotherhood. But some years ago the fine citizens of this town (my home for 26+ years) discarded the filth. They’ve since moved to Kalispell, MT. Regardless of that fact, actions such as these are unnacceptable in any instance.
One thing I will mention, though not condoning this man’s behavior; let’s keep our children off of airlplanes until they can ‘Frenzel’, otherwise you’re just causing them serious pain.